WiDS
The WiDS datathon is a Stanford University initiative preceding the Women in Data Science Conference (WiDS), to be held on Monday 8 March 2021 as a 24h virtual WiDS Worldwide Conference. WiDS Conference Maastricht will follow on Tuesday 9 March.

WiDS aims at inspiring and educating data scientists worldwide, regardless of gender, and supporting women in the field. The WiDS Datathon builds upon these same objectives by enabling a diverse team to work together in a data-related challenge. 

Stanford University as the initiator will release a data challenge on the Kaggle platform. You can join the WiDS Datathon 2021 as an individual or with a team to tackle this data challenge competing with other teams from all over the world. Aligned with the mission of the Women in Data Science Conference, we aim to inspire women to learn more about data science and create a supportive environment for women in STEM domain in general. In the WiDS Datathon 2021, we mandate at least 50% women in each participating team. 

This year's challenges
The WiDS Datathon 2021 is a closer look at last year’s patient health data from MIT’s GOSSIS (Global Open Source Severity of Illness Score) initiative, with privacy certification from the Harvard Privacy Lab. This year, the aim is to determine whether a patient admitted to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has been diagnosed with a particular type of diabetes in the past.

Getting a rapid understanding of a patient’s overall health has been particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic as healthcare workers around the world struggle with hospitals overloaded by patients in critical condition. In light of this, diabetes is a tricky condition as on a global scale 463 million adults were living with diabetes in 2019, and 1 in 2 (232 million) people were undiagnosed.

Participating teams need to create a model that predicts patient diabetes diagnosis history. Data analysis can be done using your preferred tools and submitted to Kaggle platform. The local winners will be determined by the leaderboard on the Kaggle platform at the time the Datathon closes on February 6th.

Organisation
WiDS Datathon Maastricht 2021 is an independent event that is organized by IDS Youth Data Science Community Board members Chang Sun (WiDS Ambassador), Hannah Schmitt, Jinzhou Yang, Zeynep Karagöz, and Marta Nazzari as part of the annual WiDS Worldwide conference organized by Stanford University and an estimated 150+ locations worldwide, which features outstanding women doing outstanding work in the field of data science. All genders are invited to attend all WiDS Worldwide conference events.